To be truly successful in marketing and advertising, we need to understand Behavioral Economics (BE) at a deep level in order to most effectively influence potential clients and/or customers.

Long before BE had a name, marketers were implementing it, for instance, Three for the price of two offers. Yet, despite marketing industry leadership use of BE, to this day, few utilize BE principles in a systematic way.

Solid BE marketing management works like magic to make seemingly irrational purchasing patterns more predictable. Understanding exactly how small changes to the details of an offer can influence the way people react is crucial to unlocking significant value-driven marketing technique and dominance.

Marketing professionals worth their salt know: ‘the ground is moving beneath our feet’. Fickle consumers are more demanding, enlightened and empowered. Hence, maintaining brand control is harder than in the past.

Growth starved companies are commonly practicing Random Acts of Content; releasing periodic white papers, articles, videos, and blog posts with little focus or depth. However, when you are dealing with high level clients facing serious business challenges, this scattershot approach provides little value.

The answer is Thought Leadership:

An invitation for discussion…which ultimately provides an opportunity to get to know your client – and connect better – through meaningful communication.

A Strategic Thought Leadership Program helps position you as The Trusted Advisor in your industry.

Gartner, Inc. the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company defines Thought Leadership Marketing as “the giving – for free or at a nominal charge – information or advice that a client will value so as to create awareness of the outcome that a company’s product or service can deliver, in order to position and differentiate
the offering and stimulate demand for it.”

A thought leadership program provides the organization, the executives and the salespeople with a sustained stream of education and advisory content to help open doors, make more effective sales calls, differentiate their organization and deliver trusted advice, services and product.

As you build a thought leadership position over time, your company will be increasingly seen as an industry authority, resource and trusted advisor, enhancing your brand’s visibility and reputation, helping you generate revenue and inspiring client loyalty.

In order to reach those objectives, a strategy is required which focuses on the creation of content relevant and compelling to your target audience, engaging those audiences where they congregate.

There are practical steps your company can take to design and execute a thought leadership program to help your sales force generate measurable sales growth in the next sales quarter.

Build the foundation. Like building a house, a thought
leadership program must be built on a sound foundation. If a thought
leadership program is going to create business value, it needs to directly
support your sales process and drive your communications, branding and
product sales goals.

Create building block assets. A profitable thought leadership
program is built upon a common set of sales assets – such as original
research reports, client videos, client ideas, practical “how
to” articles, client education web sites, and advisory tools – all
integrated with your sales process.

Take a Stand: Make bold statements that might
seem counterintuitive to what common sense says. You have to think about
your messages as something someone is going to want to read.

Be Vertically Famous: What you want to do is figure out
to which audience you wish to be famous. You want to be known by all in
that very particular industry.

What Does Your Competition Miss? It’s a good
idea to see what is not being done well, or perhaps not at all, by your
competitors.

Develop Your “Voice”: Whatever your
style is, make a conscious decision to use and develop it. This is
integral to your new branding effort.

Get Published: There is a distinct halo effect
when you can add the word “author” to your attributions.

Start a Newsletter and a Blog: If your
product or service has a long lead time, it makes good sense to start a
periodic publication online. An e-newsletter is the most obvious way to
go, but you should probably augment and amortize the content by employing
other channels, such as publishing your own blog. When done right, there’s
no better way to spend your marketing money.

Talk Less, Listen More: Ask questions of everyone around
you.

Press the Flesh: In this age of increased computer
marketing, there’s a lot to be said for a physical presence.

Leverage your content. A thought leadership program is about pervasive presence and ongoing conversation, not just traditional publishing and speaking. Clients want to think about and debate your ideas.
To encourage and facilitate this discussion, you need to leverage your thought leadership content by publishing compelling bits and bytes in appropriate formats across the networks and channels frequented by your clients.

If you’re working on a white paper, for example, you want to think: Is there a short video we can produce?

“If you want to analyze a corporation, read its financial statements. If you want to plumb its soul, talk to its chief executive.”

Companies spend fortunes establishing and promoting their brands, only to ignore one of the most profitable brand weapons in their arsenal: the CEO.

Surveys show companies with a well known, positively regarded CEO perform better in the stock market. However, it is very important for CEOs to be known by potential key stakeholders such as the media, employees, clients and the public for reasons beyond the price of a corporation’s stock. A positive CEO profile will improve morale, recruitment and sales.

Even though CEOs are themselves a brand, many companies waste this asset.

1. Communicating Knowledge

Knowledge is not effective unless it is communicated. The proper way of communicating is not only through speaking, but includes proper dress, body language, social etiquette, media relations, government relations and investor relations. All of which sum up to public relations. The effective CEO needs to convey a command of strategy, and consistent vision to both internal and external audiences.

As a CEO, one must be able exude a consistent, credible persona to your stakeholders. This is achieved through appropriate, strategically timed publicity campaigns, commentaries, articles, interviews, public appearances, press conferences and so on.